Inside, Cody suggested that Harlan go and see if Maritza could rustle them up some hot chocolate. He knew it was Janey’s favorite. There had been many cold winter nights when she’d fixed it for him and her father, then lingered in the shadows listening to them talk.

Before he sat down, he went into the closest bathroom and gathered up a handful of tissues and brought them back to her. He was careful to sit in a chair opposite her, since he had the terrible feeling that her crush on him was what had brought her all the way to Texas. He’d never done a thing to encourage it, except to be kind to her, but apparently that had been enough to cause this impulsive trip to Texas.

“Feeling better?” he asked after a while, when she appeared to have cried herself out and had finished the mug of hot chocolate Maritza had served with barely concealed curiosity.

Janey nodded, but wouldn’t meet his gaze. Her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment. She tucked her jeans-clad legs up under her and huddled on the sofa like a small child expecting to be scolded. She looked so woebegone that Cody was having a difficult time maintaining what was left of his dying anger.

“Janey, tell me what this is all about.”

“I c-can’t,” she whispered.

“There must be a reason you left Wyoming and came all the way to Texas. How did you know where to find me?”

“I found the address in Dad’s papers.”

“Did something happen at home?”

She shook her head, looking more and more miserable. Finally she lifted her chin and met his gaze for barely a second, then ducked it again. “You left,” she said accusingly. “One day you just weren’t there anymore and you never said goodbye.”

Even though his reason for leaving had been an emergency, he could see how it might look from her perspective. He knew that in her reserved way, she counted on him.

“Didn’t your dad tell you why I had to come home?” he asked.

“He said your mother died.”

“That’s right.”

“But I thought you’d be coming back,” she whispered. “But then you never did. And then Dad said you’d called and that y-you’d q-quit.”

Her tears started all over again. Cody went for more tissues and brought back the whole box to buy himself the time he needed to figure out how to explain things to this shy, young girl who’d so badly needed someone that she’d chosen a miserable, cynical cowboy from Texas who already had a lousy track record for reliability.

“Janey, when I got here there were things that I realized I had to do. I couldn’t come back. I explained all of that to your father.”

“But...not...to me,” she choked between sobs. “I thought you were my friend.”